1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communicating apparatus for performing wireless connection, a communication method, and a storage medium storing a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a wireless communication system, in addition to a method (for example, an infrastructure mode) of wirelessly connecting to a partner apparatus via an access point, there is known a peer-to-peer (P2P) wireless connection method in which a self apparatus or a partner apparatus serves as an access point, thereby directly, wirelessly connecting with the partner apparatus.
There is known, for example, Wi-Fi Direct® as a standard for implementing such P2P wireless connection method. A Wi-Fi Direct compatible apparatus can serve as an access point (group owner), thereby allowing direct wireless connection with a partner apparatus. At this time, whether the partner apparatus or the self apparatus serves as an access point is decided according to a sequence called Group Owner Negotiation (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-249960).
When a given apparatus on a wireless communication system transmits a probe response command to a received probe request command, an apparatus which has transmitted the probe request command can discover the partner apparatus to be wirelessly connected (device search). After the device search, a sequence of, for example, confirming an IP address and device information indicating an apparatus type is executed, thereby establishing a wireless connection.
When transmitting a probe response command to a received probe request command, it is recommended that the probe response command is transmitted within a range defined by the standard of a wireless connection method by which the self apparatus operates. For example, if a probe request command has been transmitted by an extended Wi-Fi Direct compatible apparatus and the self apparatus serves as a non-extended Wi-Fi Direct compatible apparatus, a probe response command may be transmitted within a range defined by non-extended Wi-Fi Direct. This is because even if information (including various kinds of attributes) added to the probe request command includes uninterpretable information, it is possible to respond to the received probe request command based on only interpretable information. That is, although a corresponding wireless connection sequence or subsequent processing is different, the partner apparatus is discovered. If the subsequent sequence is executed in this state, wireless connection may fail due to a parameter acquisition error or the like, or processing after wireless connection may fail.